Ruth Rothwax: The protagonist, a successful letter-writing business owner in New York City. She is the daughter of a Holocaust survivor. Ruth is smart, neurotic, and obsessive.

Edek: Ruth\s 87-year-old father, a Holocaust survivor who moves to New York and, with two Polish women, opens a successful meatball restaurant called "You Gotta Have Balls". He has difficulty expressing himself in English.

Zofia: A 69-year-old Polish woman who wins a green card and moves to New York to help Edek run the meatball restaurant. She is described as a "buxom, sixty-something femme fatale" who has a talent for making meatballs.

Walentyna: Another Polish woman who wins a green card and moves to New York to work at the meatball restaurant with Edek and Zofia.

The proprietor of a successful letter-writing business, Ruth has just branched out into a new greeting-card line. But it's not easy. Her father, Edek, is driving her crazy at the office. And the very people she thought would be most supportive -- other women -- are not. Instead of acting in one another's best interests, the women are catty and competitive, behaviors Ruth swears that she will never imitate. Until she meets the one woman who turns her aspirations of sisterly solidarity -- and her life -- upside down.
Fresh off the plane from Poland, Zofia is a buxom, sixty-something femme fatale with a talent for making balls. Meatballs, that is. When Edek asks his savvy daughter to fund his friend Zofia's restaurant, how can Ruth say no? But Ruth knows that gleam in Zofia's eye, and it means trouble is on the way for all of them. An unforgettable, heartwarming story of embracing life, You Gotta Have Balls is a funny, moving triumph from the highly inventive Lily Brett.